


Invisible Scars

by Leela



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), Tommy Ratliff (Musician)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, PTSD, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-19
Updated: 2012-09-19
Packaged: 2017-11-14 14:02:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leela/pseuds/Leela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy always expects to see scars when he looks in the mirror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Invisible Scars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aislinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aislinn/gifts).



> **Betas** : @eeyore9990, @choose2live
> 
>  **Disclaimer** : An imaginary tale about imaginary things that will never happen to real people. 
> 
> **A/N** : Written as a birthday gift for @aislinntlc and in thanks for all the time she's spent doing betas for me. She requested hurt/comfort. Happy birthday, Aislinn! I hope you like the threesome I picked out of the pairings you offered.

Tommy always expects to see scars when he looks in the mirror. He wraps his body in layers of clothes to hide them — from himself, from the fans, from everyone — even though most of them aren't visible. There's only one, curving down the side of his right knee, and it's not enough. It just fucking isn't enough.

He turns away from the mirror, from the urge to shatter the glass. _Seven years bad luck_ , his grandmother's voice tells him, and a note of near-hysteria edges his laugh.

"Jesus fuck, Ratliff," he tells himself. "Get a god damn grip." 

He backs out of the bathroom and scrambles into the sweats and t-shirt he left crumpled on the bed. Then he heads downstairs to the den. He sprawls out on one of the couches, guitar and a tall glass of Jack close at hand, and snags the remote. He doesn't give a shit what's in the DVD player, as long as it's loud enough to drown out the screams in his head. Well, that's what he thinks until he turns it on and some chick is sitting there in a wedding dress, crying her eyes out, and whining about not usually making exceptions for anyone. 

It takes Tommy three tries to stab one of the buttons, and all that does is pause the fucking thing.

He curls back into the couch, pulls his legs in toward him, and rests his forehead on his knees. His eyes are squeezed shut, as tight as he can manage, but it isn't quite enough. Images flicker through his mind, flames licking at the edges of each memory. Petra screaming Tommy's name. Tommy in the passenger seat because he was too drunk, too tired, too miserable to drive. Petra screaming and screaming and screaming.

The noise cuts off, abruptly, and Tommy raises his head. The chick is still sitting there, mascara-tinted tears frozen onto her face. She's still silent as is the room around her, around him. 

Then his phone rings again. The guitar in his most recent ringtone rises into a shredding screech, and he scrubs a hand over his eyes. The call cuts over to voicemail before he can fumble his way through the password. Adam, the missed call notice tells him. Adam, whose name fills the first page of his missed call log and the past two days' worth of voicemail.

Dropping his phone on the couch beside him, Tommy reaches for the Jack. It's warm and a bit nasty, but perfect for what he needs, what he deserves right then. He drinks like meditation, one small sip after another, holding it in his mouth long enough to make him want to spit it out before forcing himself to swallow. He's halfway through the glass when someone unlocks the front door. 

Tommy's heart trips in his chest. No one should be home, not for a few days. Mike's back home, visiting family and celebrating his grandmother's birthday. The other guys should be in a van, halfway between LA and Portland, racing to make it there on time for a last-minute gig.

He needs a weapon, but there's nothing around. The glass isn't heavy enough, his guitar too precious. Besides thieves don't usually let themselves in with keys, right? So he sits and waits. Listens to the deadbolt click open and then, a few incredibly long seconds later, the useless one in the doorknob. Listens to voices that are too low for him to make out individual words from this far away, to footsteps on tile and then hardwood.

Someone knocks into the shelf that sticks out right in that awkward corner by the kitchen. There's a curse in a language Tommy recognizes but barely understands. Instead of relaxing him though, it makes him more tense. He can't fucking handle them. Not today. Not now. 

He's just managed to persuade his legs to unbend and is swaying on his feet, catching at the arm of the couch before taking his first step, when the doorway is filled and his escape is blocked.

\|/

Adam's standing in the doorway, staring at Tommy. There's movement behind him, and then Sauli squeezes beneath Adam's arm and stands just in front of him. Neither of them is dressed up, but Tommy feels resentful anyway. Nobody should look that fucking good in worn jeans, a t-shirt and jacket, even if their clothes cost more than Tommy makes most weeks. Hell, most months.

Way too aware of the stains and tears in his sweats and t-shirt, Tommy raises a hand and tries to finger comb his hair back into place.

"You look like shit," Adam says. 

"Fuck off." Tommy half-sits, half-falls back onto the couch. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and rubs at the back of his neck. "Just fuck back off to wherever you were doing lunch and leave me alone."

"No." 

That's Sauli, not Adam. 

Tommy's head jerks up, as if he's caught in the field of a magnet. All of his shock is showing on his face, he knows, but it's like there's nothing he can do about it. He's never been able to walk away from Adam, not since the day he walked into that first audition, and now that's spilled over onto Sauli. 

But Tommy's skin is too tight today. Everything inside him is too close to spilling over. "Please," comes out before he thinks about it, and then it's too late. 

Adam comes up behind Sauli, his forehead creased in that way it does when he's worried about someone close to him. But he stops next to Sauli, their bodies touching in that way they always do, and for a moment, something close to hate, almost like jealousy blasts through Tommy. He feels queasy in its aftermath and drinks the last of his Jack, hoping to wash the taste away. He leans back into the couch, legs slightly spread, and tries to look relaxed. 

They don't buy it. Instead, they split apart and come to sit on either side of Tommy. Adam on the left and Sauli on the right. Sauli's knee touches the scar on the side of Tommy's leg. It's an echo of feeling, all that the numbness left behind by nerve damage allows, but it's too much. Tommy brings that leg up, wraps his arms around it, protecting himself and them. 

A click brings Tommy's attention back to the TV just in time to see the chick's face disappear. 

Adam places the remote back on the coffee table. "You didn't answer your phone, and Mike said it wasn't a good weekend for you to be alone. We had to do something." 

"I'm good," Tommy says. "You can tell Mike you saw me, and that I'm like fine and shit." 

"Or you could tell us what is wrong." Sauli turns towards Tommy, leans his head on Tommy's shoulder, and rests against him. 

On instinct, Tommy puts an arm around him. They've done this before, when Adam was away and Sauli was homesick for his love, his family, and his country. It's a familiar kind of comfort, until Adam slides an arm over Tommy's shoulders and gathers them both in. Now Tommy's caught between them, and the flames are licking at the edge of his mind again. He starts to slide down, but Adam and Sauli stop him.

"Don't, man. All right? Just don't." Tommy bites his lower lip. "You've gotta let me go, okay?"

"Not this time," Adam says. "This time, you're going to talk to us."

The choked noise that Tommy makes isn't like anything he's ever heard before. He bites his lip again, because that seems like a better idea than pressing his hand against his mouth to hold the sounds in. 

"Mike did not tell us." Sauli's voice is soft, his accent making it stupidly soothing. "He said that we should get you to explain." He takes a breath. "He said to tell you that if the Jack hadn't dissolved your brain completely, you'd take his advice."

Tension rises from Tommy's churning gut, sears through him like acid. It's too hot all of a sudden. His skin is sticky with sweat, and he wants nothing more than to grab the fucking bottle of Jack and drink until he can't talk. Instead, he closes his eyes, swallows down the bile, and whispers, "She won't stop screaming."

Adam stiffens and then draws Tommy even closer, until he's half in Adam's lap. Sauli moves too and starts to rub circles on Tommy's arms and chest, to pet his hair. They don't say anything though. They just hold him and touch him.

"It's all fucked up. Like, I fuck everything up eventually. You should just go." _Before you burn_ , he thinks, but his voice disappears, turning into a thick suffocating lump, before he says that out loud.

"No." Adam and Sauli say it together. 

A hoarse, wet laugh makes it out of Tommy's tight throat, and everything seems to ease up again. 

"Talk to me," Adam says, and he presses a kiss to Tommy's temple. "Or to Sauli. To anyone, for fuck's sake."

And there it is again, the weird ass pull that Adam always has on Tommy. He sighs and relaxes into it for a few seconds, into Adam.

"Why does she scream?" Sauli murmurs into Tommy's neck.

"Because she's burning." The words are out, and he can't take them back, so he figures he might as well just keep on talking. "I was so goddamn drunk, you know. Screw was tearing itself apart, and I was caught in the middle. The gigs had dried up and I was behind in the rent, in like every bill there was. My dad was hammering at me night and fucking day to get a real job. And Petra... fuck, she just wanted to make sure I got home safely." 

Tommy squeezes his eyes shut, and his breathing turns into a strange kind of hiccup. And still they hold on to him. He doesn't get it. People just don't do this shit. Not in real life. They back off and leave you drowning in it, because that's easier than being there when shit gets sticky.

"She'd still be around to kick my ass if she'd let me drive that night." 

And that's all that matters. All that has mattered for the past few years. Every time he succeeds, every time something goes his way, that thought slices through him like an electric current and he's waking up all over again, opening his eyes to the sight of a truck jack-knifing and an SUV rolling towards them. 

Tommy's eyes are burning, and his nose is starting to run. He sniffs and raises his hand to rub at it, but Adam presses a kleenex into his hand. Startled, Tommy turns his head and looks at him. "What—"

"You want me to tell you when to blow, too?"

It's a stupid old joke, from way back at the beginning of the Glam Nation tour, and it tilts Tommy so far off-balance that when he blinks, tears start running down his face. 

Adam and Sauli don't leave though. They don't pat Tommy awkwardly, or look uncomfortable, or mutter something vaguely insulting. Instead, they shift closer, hold him tighter, and murmur care and love into his skin. Tommy curls into them, and for the first time in longer than he can remember, he lets someone else take care of him.

\|/

Tommy wakes up with a pounding headache, sore eyes, and a dry mouth. He blinks and licks his lips, but that doesn't do anything except leave him feeling crusty. Then, when he goes to stretch, he realizes that he can't move his left arm or feel his right foot. Carefully, trying not to move his head any more than he has to, he looks around.

His arm is trapped between the couch and Adam's back. His foot is underneath Sauli's ass. 

Everything comes rushing back to him, the talking, the crying, the kissing. He drops his head back, and then raises it quickly when it thumps down onto Adam's chest.

Adam's eyes open in narrow slits. He glares at Tommy before pulling Tommy's head down more gently. "You okay?" Adam whispers.

For a second, Tommy doesn't know what to say. Then Adam strokes a hand over Tommy's shoulder and down his arm, and Sauli stirs and rubs his cheek against Tommy's side.

"I'm good," Tommy says, because it's as true as it's ever been. 

"This couch," Sauli grumbles, "is worse than the one my family's dog sleeps on back home." He stretches and something cracks loudly. 

"It's not that bad, you know." Tommy snickers. "You should try the other one. It's got more lumps than Adam's oatmeal."

"Hey, my cooking isn't that bad."

Tommy exchanges a glance with Sauli and shakes his head. "Whatever, dude."

"It's not!"

"Your cooking is much better," Sauli says. "This couch, however..." He sits up and shifts off Tommy's foot. 

Cool air seems to fill the empty space, and Tommy shivers. Adam pulls him closer for a brief hug, then pushes him off and starts sitting up himself. 

It was a moment, Tommy thinks, and now it's over. Just like all the other moments he's had with Adam, and more recently, with Adam and Sauli. A taste of what they have, of what he's never had, and all it does is leave him with the munchies. He shoves himself upright, wobbling briefly before he finds his balance. He's halfway across the room when Sauli catches up with him. At the touch of Sauli's hand, Tommy stops. A single flame licks at the edge of his mind then fades away. 

"What I mean to say is that our couch is more comfortable. It's bigger too."

"Yeah, okay. Thanks for coming over." Tommy takes a step forward, but Sauli takes hold of his wrist. 

"I know my English isn't that bad now, but it's possible I'm not being clear enough." Still holding onto Tommy's wrist, Sauli comes around to stand in front of Tommy. "That," he says, "was an invitation. I... _we_ want you to come home with us."

"You—" Tommy manages to get out, and then he's surrounded by them, hugged by them and hugging them. 

"This is kinda fucked up," Tommy finally says when he can breathe.

"In a good way," Adam says. 

"But what about—"

"Hush." Adam places a finger over Tommy's mouth. "Let's figure out where this takes us first, okay?"

Unable to come up with anything that makes sense, Tommy licks his lips and nods. 

Sauli smiles brightly and presses a kiss to Tommy's mouth and then to Adam's. "Yay," Sauli says, and Tommy leans back against Adam and laughs.


End file.
